But the older woman had interrupted, “No, I had rather you would ask no questions, at least not now please, Jessica, for I have heard at least a part of the girl’s history, and yet I believe the real truth is not known to any one and perhaps never will be. It may be happier for Olive if it never is found out, but I wish we could teach her not to be so sensitive.” And then when the opportunity arrived Miss Winthrop had moved across the room to where Olive was in hiding. As the girl’s startled brown eyes were upturned to hers Miss Winthrop, who was not poetic, yet thought that her pupil in her pale green dress with her queer pointed chin and her air of mystery, somehow suggested a girl from some old fairy legend of the sea. And she wondered why the girls and young men in the ballroom had not also seen Olive’s unusual beauty, forgetting that young people seldom admire what is out of the ordinary.
Some impulse after her first speech to Olive made the older woman quickly put out her hand, clasping Olive’s slender brown fingers in hers. “Don’t be afraid of me,” she said in a voice that was gentler than usual, “for I understand it is timidity that is making you hide yourself. Don’t you think though that you would enjoy dancing?”
Olive’s face was suddenly aglow. “I should love it,” she returned, forgetting for the instant her shyness, “only no one has invited me.” Then as her teacher suddenly rose to her feet, as though intending to find her a partner, with a sudden accession of dignity and fearlessness Olive drew her down again. “Please don’t ask anyone to dance with me, Miss Winthrop,” she begged; “if you will sit by me for a little while I am sure it will be delightful just watching the others.”
While the woman and girl were quietly gazing at the dancers, Miss Winthrop happened to notice a silver chain with a cross at the end of it, which Olive was wearing around her throat. Leaning over she took the cross in her hand. “This is an odd piece of jewelry, child, and must be very old; it is so heavy that I wonder if there is anything concealed inside it.”
Olive shook her head. “No, that is, I don’t know anything about it, except that I hope it once belonged to my mother,” she replied. For some strange reason this shy girl was speaking of her mother to a comparative stranger, when she rarely had spoken the name even to her best beloved friend, Jacqueline Ralston.
But before Miss Winthrop had time to reply a new voice startled both of them. “Why, Olive Ralston,” it exclaimed, “what do you mean by hiding yourself away with Miss Winthrop when I have been searching the house over for you.”
Turning around, to her intense surprise, Olive now beheld Donald Harmon standing near them, the young fellow whose father had rented the Rainbow Ranch from the Ralston girls the summer before and whose sister had been responsible for Jack Ralston’s fall over the cliff.
“I wonder why you would not tell Olive that I was to be one of your guests to-night, Miss Winthrop,” he continued, “and that my aunt is your old friend and lives near Primrose Hall.”
While Miss Winthrop was laughing and protesting that she had no idea that Olive and Donald could know each other, Donald was trying to persuade Olive out on the ballroom floor for her first dance with him. By accident it happened to be a Spanish waltz and Olive had not danced it before, but she had been watching the other girls. Donald was an excellent partner and in five minutes she might have been dancing it all her life.
Now dancing with Olive and with Jean was quite a different art, although both of the girls were beautiful dancers. Jean was gay and vivacious, full of grace and activity, keeping excellent time to the music, but Olive seemed to move like a flower that is swayed by the wind, hardly conscious of what she was dancing or how she was dancing it and yet yielding her body to every note of the music and movement of her partner.